Thoughts and notes about the books I am reading. My entries are not book reviews but just my personal thoughts and opinions about what I'm reading at the moment. The entries obviously contain SPOILERS.

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The Other Wife 3 – The End

I was glad that Libby was finally released on bail. I love Molly and the active part that she takes to help her mother. She is quite clever and outsmarts her father. She decides that they need help and calls a private investigator, Edd. When Rob talks to Edd, and he tells him about Switzerland, he urges him to call his lawyer, and in a question of hours Libby is released on bail. Libby is not happy that they had to disclose something so private for Rose, but her children’s welfare and her freedom were at stake, and I think Rose would have agreed to sacrifice her privacy for the family’s well-being.

When Edd and Rob talk to the forensic expert who examined Rose, he tells them that the pillow fibres are not so significant since Rose could have used the pillow to smother a cry of pain. He also tells them about a bang on her head and the overdose. Rose might have press the button herself, or the machine supplying the morphine might have been faulty.

The end is quite rushed. Melissa comes to talk to Libby when Edd makes her admit that the night Rose died she had been outside the house. Melissa claims she went to talk to Libby but then she saw all the lights out. Yet, she pressed her face against the window of Rose’s room and saw her asleep. Yet, she saw something else. She saw Max there. Then Rob and Libby talk to Max, and the boy admits that he went to lie next to her mother, and at some point Rose woke up and cried in pain, and as he knew that the machine helped her in her pain, he pressed the button. Rob and Libby are worried about what this might mean for Max. I am not sure what the consequences would be when a mere five-year-old boy simply pressed a button to help his mother without any evil intentions. Would the justice send hi to a youth centre? I really don’t know.

Then the part that I found rush is Penny, Libby’s perfect neighbour, is waiting for her. She wants to confess that she made the phone call to the police. She is a nurse, and she thought that there was something off in Rose’s death. Then she launches a diatribe about Libby being perfect; there is clear hostility and hatred there, and she admits to having set the machine for Rose. So it is almost a confession that the woman tamper with the machine out of spite, and when she feels cornered, she stabs Edd. Thankfully, Edd’s wound is superficial, and Penny is arrested. I have my misgivings about this resolution. Penny was only a reference in most of the novel, and we didn’t know much about her until this moment. I think her reasons to kill or speed Rose’s death were a bit weak. She wanted Rose dead because she was jealous of Libby? That was a bit far-fetched for my taste.

Despite my mixed feelings about the end, I really loved the book. It was emotional and thought-provoking. It made us think about those people who are condemned by disease, and whether the law should be changed so that a person could decide over their own life. It is difficult to have an opinion about this. I believe that life is sacred, but it is easy to judge when you are not in the difficult position that terminal patients find themselves.

Thoughts and notes about the books I am reading. My entries are not book reviews but just my personal thoughts and opinions about what I'm reading at the moment. The entries obviously contain SPOILERS.